We keep hearing the Religious Right [1]
speak of the on-going "culture wars" that they're waging against the rest of society.
On the front fighting against evolution, we have the creationists of both the young-earth "creation science" and of the "intelligent design" varieties (though the latter has largely been adopted as a smokescreen for the former).

The problem for these creationist "culture warriors" is that they are violating that first rule of war: they do not know their enemy.
In more than three decades, I do not recall ever seeing a creationist actually address or attack evolution itself.
Rather, they would always attack their "evolution model", a confused amalgamated mess created by their misunderstanding and their misrepresentations of evolution and of the rest of science.
Much of their confusion appears to be from their ignorance of science -- eg, their heavy reliance on "common sense" "folk science" which is almost invariably wrong -- , but sadly much of it has been willfully self-induced.
They waste all their efforts on battling strawmen of their own creation.
They truly do not know their enemy.

Even worse for them, they also violate Sun Tzu's second rule of knowing yourself.
They use claims that they do not understand which are supposedly (but aren't) based on scientific principles that they do not understand.
Thus they are unable to explain or to discuss or to defend their own claims, let alone evaluate them for themselves.
They also have no knowledge of the history of their claims.
Believing that their claims are "new scientific findings" and that no "evolutionist" has ever been able to respond to them, they are unaware that almost all their claims are decades old and were soundly refuted almost immediately (ie, decades ago) and continue to be refuted every day.
I have personally witnessed how devastating it is for young over-confident creationists to suddenly learn the harsh truth about their claims -- creationist Dr. Sarfati of Answers in Genesis described it thus: "It was like watching your brother enter the ring thinking he had a killer punch, and watching him get cut to ribbons."
They truly do not even know themselves.

The result of their ignorance of their enemy and of themselves is that they cannot win an honest argument; they cannot even begin to participate in one.
They may be able to bamboozle themselves and an opponent who is just as ignorant of evolution and science as they are, but they have no chance against a knowledgeable opponent.
And since they have been taught to believe that their faith depends on their claims being true, many lose their faith -- a large number of opponents to "creation science" used to be creationists themselves.
Those losses include upwards of 80% (according to youth ministers) of the children who had been raised on "creation science", though the effects of other aspects of their theology also play a role.
Many creationists (usually the adults who are better at avoiding the truth) do not lose their faith as a result of learning the truth, but instead have to turn to dishonest tactics, including deliberate lies and deception.
As a result, "creation science" has damaged the public image of Christians and of Christianity to the point of giving non-Christians very good reasons to reject Christianity and to find Christians to be untrustworthy hypocrites prone to lying (sorry, but that is what their Christian witnessing amounts to).

"Creation science" has even accomplished something through its faulty logic that no anti-God atheist ever could: it has succeeded in disproving the existence of God.
Many creationists insist that if their claims are not true, then God doesn't exist. Well, their claims are not true.
That faulty argumentation accounts for most of the creationists who lose their faith and it misleads the public into falsely believing that science and evolution disprove God.

Creationists created this situation. Christians need to correct it.
Failure to do so will prove disasterous for them and for their religion.

(The Governor of Mississippi explaining why he was campaigning so hard for
education reform in his state, quoted from memory from NPR circa 1990)

"I still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical
Christian community did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution
debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed."

This page, My Position on "Creation Science", is the unabbreviated outline of my position with exposition, discussion, and examples (lots of examples!) drawn from my three and a half decades of experience with "creation science" which started in 1981.

Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) officially exposed "creation science's" game of "Hide the Bible," so now creationists have changed the game to "Hide the Creationism" by adding another layer of deception with "intelligent design", which has also been exposed in court for that it really is (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 2005).

The only people that "creation science" is fooling are the creationists themselves.

"Creation science" has serious detrimental effects on creationists and on Christianity:

It holds creationists' faith hostage as they are taught to believe that if "creation science" claims turn out to be false, then they should throw their Bibles into the trash (what a creationist actually insisted to me).

It has caused many believers to lose their faith, what one near-victim called "spiritual death", when they learn the truth.
Christian sources themselves say that 65% to 80% of their own youth leave the faith and all religion; I believe that being raised on a steady diet of "creation science" and then learning the truth has a lot to do with that.

It leads creationists to become highly dishonest.

It keeps non-Christians from ever even considering Christianity.
That is because of both the perceived dishonesty of creationists and the perceived requirement to believe contrary-to-fact nonsense.
Also, there's the implied testimony of creationists that they themselves believe Christianity can only be supported and promoted with lies and deception. Who would ever want to get involved in a religion like that?

It creates the public perception of Christianity being a threat to science education and to the American way of life.
That perception is strengthened by other Christian efforts such as trying to use the government to force their beliefs on the rest of society.

Clearly, "creation science" is very bad theology which does a great disservice to Christians and to Christianity itself.

If you are a Christian or even a creationist, you may object to how non-believers see you.
I can think of no other reaction you could have.
So if you do not like how non-believers see you, then work to change their perception of you.
It's the same idea as maintaining the honor of the uniform: if the public sees a uniformed member behaving badly, then that reflects poorly on all members of that service or even of all services.
If you identify yourself to others as a Christian and misbehave, then that reflects poorly on your entire church.
Strive to actually uphold and follow the lofty standards you profess to uphold and follow.

You can start by honestly assessing your adherence to "creation science" and what effect it has.

Creationists are masters of the art of quote-mining, which is quoting out-of-context in order to make the source appear to say something completely different than what it really said, something "coincidentally" exactly what the creationist wants it to say.
This includes hiding whole paragraphs and even multiple pages within ellipses (...), the omission of which changes the meaning of the quote (which is contrary to the intended use of ellipses).
And the construction of new sentences constructed out of fragments collected from the text; eg, I have a quote-mined sentence lifted from a 1929 article by Dr. D.M.S. Watson in which the first half was taken from the first page and the second half from a few pages later where the original sentences were talking about different things.
And that's not even mentioning the fabricated "quotes" created by either rewriting part of an actual quote or just making up the entire "quote" out of whole cloth.

Creationist claims are not normal. They're very much like urban legends or conspiracy theories.
They keep circulating in "creo-space" being told and retold endlessly.
Most creationists have no idea who first created a particular claim.
Sometimes we can trace the history of a claim through creationist publications, but the originator remains a mystery.
Most creationists just repeat creationist "urban legends" that they've heard, even when they do not understand those claims because they just sound so convincing.

Creationist bibliographies are questionable, but having a bibliography makes a claim look more convincing, especially if scientific sources are mentioned.
However, out of the "urban legend" nature of "creation science" we get the situation where the scientific sources in a claim's bibliography are not the creationist's actual source, but rather that actual source was another creationist.
Rather, all most creationists do is to copy their actual creationist source's bibliography without ever having looked at that source.
And that actual creationist source? He did the exact-same thing and had never looked at the cited source. Like his own creationist source, and that source's source, etc, etc, etc in an incredibly long chain of lying about their actual source. Even the high-level professionals do it. When I researched Dr. Henry Morris' claim of a "1976" NASA document supporting his moon dust claim (which hinged heavily on the document being from "well into the space age" after we had landed on the moon), I found that he had never ever even looked at his cited NASA source and later realized that his actual creationist source, Harold Slusher, had also never ever even looked at it. I know that, because the moment I pulled that document off the library shelf and looked at the cover, I knew that it's contents were published in 1965 and, once I looked at the copyright page, that it was printed in 1967. Follow my moon dust link for the full story. That was in the late 1980's and just short of three decades later his false claim is still for sale at your local Christian bookstore and will continue to be sold there for decades to come. Lesson learned: the quickest and easiest way to refute many creationist claims is to look up the source that they cite.

So in light of that bad example, here is what I would advise:

Never believe what a creationist tells you. Always verify it.

Creationists are not in the game for the truth nor for learning something new. They want to convince you and also themselves (to assuage those nagging doubts).
Their methods are also dodgy. And most of the time they're just copying from what some other creationist once said -- most of the creationists I'd encounter on-line were just repeating what they had heard and had no understanding of their claim, so they'd always react with anger whenever I'd try to discuss any of their claims with them.

But also, as I have mentioned above, the first, best first step in refuting a creationist claim is to look up the sources that he cites.
For example, a creationist on CompuServe quoted ICR geologist Dr. Steve Austin as describing tree roots extending into a coal seam as per a particular scientific article (Broadhurst, F. M., 1964, Some aspects of the paleoecology of non-marine fauas and rates of sedimentation in the Lancashire coal measures: American Journal of Science, vol. 262, pp.858-869, Q1.A5), but when I read that particular article it actually said that those tree roots did not extend into the coal seams. Had Dr. Austin actually ever read that article? I do not know.

This admonition also applies to creationists. Think like a scientist for a moment.
A scientist is going to work on some research which is based on another scientist's research. Since your research depends on his research, wouldn't you want to know that his research was sound? Wouldn't you want to have tested it out before relying on it?
That is the basis for the culture of scientific research where everybody is constantly testing and retesting everybody else's research.
The moment the first papers on cold fusion were FAX'd out, physicists everywhere were eagerly awaiting them in order to test the theory.
And they found it to be wrong and abandoned the idea.
That is how science works, by testing what others claim.
Contrast that how creationism works, where any crazy idea is given credence so long as it appears to oppose evolution and sounds convincing.
Two entirely different cultures.

Another aspect of verifying a claim is that if the claim involves a calculation, then do the math yourself!
A prime example is a Kent Hovind claim about how much mass the sun is losing as it "burns its fuel" (ie, loses mass through hydrogen fusion), such that Hovind switches to waving his hands as he predicts that the sun 5 billion years ago would have been so incredibly massive that it would have "sucked the earth in."
Well, I did do the math and the ancient sun's mass would have only been marginally greater than it is now thus "sucking the earth in" about 40,000 miles.
Before you do the math and while you're distracted by his hand-waving, Hovind's claim sounds convincing. Then you do the math and realize the truth. Makes a big difference.

So assuming that you are a creationist who is dedicated to the truth, wouldn't you want to only use those claims which prove to be true?
If a claim proved to be false, would you want to use it anyway?
Well, duh, if you're a creationist who doesn't care for the truth but only wants the convincing-sound "ammo" to use for proselytizing, then you wouldn't give it a second thought.
You'd be ready and eager to use whatever lie or deception you can in order to serve your god.
We see your kind all the time and that is one of the reasons why we reject your false religion.

Actually, it's a good idea to approach non-creationist claims with the same skepticism.
It's just that decades of experience has taught us that the creationist claim is almost always guaranteed to be bogus.

Practice good scholarship.

Cite your actual sources. Do not just copy what your source says his source was, because he was probably lying too (very common of creationists).
When a source is cited, then go to that actual source and verify what it says.
That is especially important when verifying a creationist's claim; in many cases, the first and only necessary step in decisively refuting a creationist claim has been to read his purported source.
When you quote a source either directly or indirectly, do so accurately. Do not misrepresent what your source says.

Be mindful of primary and secondary sources.
A primary source is the actual original source. A secondary source is a source that references the primary source.
If you quote a primary source through a secondary source, then mark your quote accordingly and identify both the primary source and the secondary -- eg, "<primary source> as quoted by <secondary source>".
If it is at all possible, go to, read, and use the primary source. If that is not possible and you have to use a secondary source, then at least be honest about it.

Give your readers enough information for them to look up your sources themselves.
After all, why wouldn't they want to read your sources to verify what you have said?

Learn all you can about science.

That is a tall order, but necessary.
So many creationist claims are based on a misunderstanding of the science, such that just knowing something about the science purportedly behind a claim can alert you to what's wrong with that claim.

One of the benefits of researching creationist claims is that you do learn a lot about science along the way.

Learn all you can about evolution.

Creationists' main stock-in-trade is misunderstanding and misrepresenting evolution and all their claims "refuting" evolution are based on those misunderstandings and misrepresentations.
A few examples are "So why are there still monkeys?" (actually observed in the wild on at least three occasions; in one case, a caller to a radio show creationist Duane Gish was on, Gish had to explain that problem to the caller), "But they're still MOTHS!!!", "To summarize [punctuated equilibria] a snake laid an egg and a bird came out." (actual quote from a creationist "teaching [us] about [our] theory").
There's also a "chicken or the egg" argument a local creationist uses in which a newly evolved chicken and her mate both had to have completely re-evolved their entire reproductive systems, something that makes absolutely no sense if you know anything about evolution, but must somehow seem to make sense according to their own misunderstanding of evolution.

The better you understand what evolution really is, the less you will be deceived by those creationist arguments.
And, if you are a creationist who wants to fight evolution, then by understanding what evolution really is you will know to avoid using those false arguments and fighting those strawman caricatures, and instead actually address evolution itself and address its real problems, not the fake BS other creationists waste their time and efforts dishing out.
Why waste your time and effort? Do something meaningful.

Learn all you can about "creation science"

This also cuts both ways.
For the non-creationist who wants to fight "creation science", you have to know all you can about "creation science".
The opposition to "creation science" was built of scientists and teachers who in the 1970's had been suckered into a "creation/evolution debate", the creationists' standard travelling snake-oil show, in which they were chewed up piece-meal and spat out.
The problem was that they didn't know what they'd be up against, but rather thought the debate would be about science.
They could immediately identify their creationist opponent's statements to be complete nonsense, but they didn't know how to explain that fact to the audience in the very limited time the debate format offered them.
Plus, many creationist claims lie about what a scientific source says, so they'd have to be able to look up that source in order to show that was not what it actually said, again something that cannot be done in a debate format.
But in a few years after having learned about "creation science" and its claims, those scientists and teachers were more than capable of refuting those creationist claims in a debate.

By knowing those claims, you won't be deceived by them and you will know how to respond to them.

Similarly, if you are a creationist then you do need to know all you can about "creation science".
Most of its claims have been around for decades and each one has a history, which includes its having been refuted.
Almost no creationist has any sense of that history.
I have actually seen many creationists present a list of old often refuted claims confidently claiming that they "remain unanswered by the evolutionist" (an actual quote from a creationist site).
I also witnessed a young creationist get completely blown away when he got up and announced a "brand-new scientific discovery that will blow you evolutionists away", which turned out to be a decade-old claim (Setterfield's claim that the speed of light has been slowing down) and half the audience burst out into uncontrollable laughter while at the same time trying to explain to him why that claim is bogus.

The main problem for creationists is that their camp and its literature won't tell them the truth about their claims and certainly not those claims' histories.
Creationist books are filled with bogus claims that were soundly refuted decades ago and each new generation of creationists picks up those books thinking that that is the latest and greatest information.
Then they go out and try to use those claims and they get shot down in flames -- even Answers in Genesis creationists Dr. Jonathan Sarfati and Dr. Don Batten warn of the disasterous effects that can have on a creationist and on his faith (also quoted below).

In order to learn about "creation science", a creationist needs to go to the opponents of "creation science".
Only by reading the critiques and refutations of creationist claims can a creationist learn about "creation science" and to prepare himself to discuss those claims.
Or at the very least to learn which claims to avoid using.
This falls under the heading of knowing your enemy and yourself.

Don't be afraid to read from both sides

Creationists have actually responded to my admonition that they need to learn evolution by refusing to do so specifically because that would require them to accept evolution.
That reveals their view of education being solely for the purpose of indoctrination whereas the actual goal of education is to encourage understand of ideas and concepts instead of compelling belief (California State Board of Education).
Certainly when the US Air Force in 1982 instructed me in Marxism and Communism their intent was definitely not to compel me to become a communist, but rather to enable me to know our enemy.

Creationists, do not be afraid to read what your opponents and critics say. That information can only help you.
Non-creationists, do not be afraid to read what creationists say and write.
Instead of taking another non-creationist's word for it, read for yourself the actual claims in the creationists' actual words.
And creationists, don't take another creationist's word on what science is and teaches, but rather go straight to the source for the truth.

Teach your children.

This one is directly primarily at creationists.
The primary target of the "creation science" political agenda has always been to keep evolution from being taught in the public schools.
I believe that that is very misguided and counter-productive for the creationist cause.
If you are a "culture warrior" fighting against evolution and you want your children to grow up to be "culture warriors" too, then you would want them to be properly trained.
But in order to fight evolution, both you and they will need to know all they can possibly know about evolution (ie, know your enemy).
If you send them into battle not knowing anything about their enemy, they will surely be defeated and will very likely suffer "spiritual death", ie losing their faith.
Do you really want that to happen to your children?

Knowing all they can about what evolution really is can only help your children.
They will know which creationist claims and arguments are worthless and hence know not to waste their time with those.
They will be able to discover and exploit evolution's real weaknesses and problems which "creation science" knows nothing about because of its misunderstanding and misrepresentation of evolution.
And they will be immune from the crises of faith that arise when they discover that you had been lying to them all their lives through "creation science"; remember that Christian sources place the disaffection rate of youth raised in the faith at 65% to 80%.

For non-creationists, teaching your children will help to immunize them against being deceived by false creationist claims.

Honestly assess how what you discover should affect what you believe.

Creationists, this will perhaps be the hardest piece of advice for you to follow, but it is also one of the most necessary.
This is because "creation science" is holding your faith hostage in very real and dangerous ways.
Creationists will tell you that their claims must be true or else "Scripture will have no meaning"
(John Morris, ICR) and will insist that should evolution turn out to be true then you should throw your Bible onto a trash heap and become a hedonistic atheist (a position which I saw a creationist insist on most adamantly).
They will even go so far as to claim that if evolution is true then God does not exist, or else is a Liar who does not deserve worship.
They make your very faith completely dependent on "creation science", thus holding it hostage.

Consider this thought: you may claim to believe in the Bible, but you don't since you believe instead in a theology.
Despite claims that Divine Revelation lies at the center of your theology, all the rest of it, the vast majority of it, is Man-made. Fallible humans trying to understand and make sense of that Revelation and of God and Everything.
And, being made by fallible humans, our theologies are also fallible. In fact, you don't even follow your church's theology, but rather you follow your own theology which you have created yourself.
Sure, you tried to make it the same as your church's theology, but because you do not understand that theology perfectly you have created an imperfect copy for yourself which is loaded with your own misunderstandings. For that matter, it is impossible for anyone to follow an external theology, but rather all we can ever do is to follow our own imperfect misunderstanding of an external theology.

Now, while you operate as if your theology were completely correct (which is quite natural), what happens when it turns out to be wrong about something?
Your theology has you believing that if you were to find even a single error in the Bible then the whole thing is worthless.
So what happens when you find an error in your theology?
Is your entire theology now worthless and you should discard the whole misguided mess?
Why?
Your theology is the imperfect product of a very fallible human. It's inevitable that you would have gotten some things wrong when you created that theology.
So what should you do?
How's about doing what science does when it discovers an error: correct that error.
Rather obvious once you look at it, right?

"Creation science" is a fallible theology. For that matter, it is proven to be riddled with errors.
So if they got so much so very wrong, then why should you also believe what they say about what you need to do when you discover an error? Wouldn't you think that maybe they had gotten that wrong too?

Here's another thought. As a creationist, you believe that God created the universe, right?
One devout Christian, a grandfather, referred to Nature as God's First Testament.
A creationist once tried to argue that, since Satan had been given dominion over the earth, He had planted all that "false" geological and fossil evidence to make the earth merely appear old.
I suggested that, since Satan is such a clever devil, instead of doing all that work all he had to do was to create a false theology that taught that if the world were really as it actually is then that disproved God.
Then all that Satan would have to do was to give that false theology to some fundamentalist Christians and they would very zealously do all the work for Him.
That creationist never got back to me.

So then, what is your honest and considered assessment of the consequences of discovering that "creation science" is wrong?
That is something that you really do need to work out for yourself.

"Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory."

It has been my experience in talking to agnostics and atheists that many were raised in fundamentalist churches and that the denial of the physical evidence that those churches engaged in was a significant reason for them leaving Christ.

. . .

The main downfall of Creation Science is that it is combined with a belief in YEC, and generally with a belief that YEC is required for salvation.

Because of this the evidence suggests that those who ascribe to Creation Science, esp. those who promote it, tend to:

Drive Christians to become atheists, agnostics and deists,

Become severely self-deluded and/or morally degenerate,

Engage in slander.

"We don't know why the evidence is the way it is but we believe in the literal understanding of Genesis." may be a tougher line to teach than "the worldly, atheistic scientists are all in a conspiracy / brainwashed / blinded by the devil" but if

Presentation of some of the science, mainly in the course of examining a creationist claim.

Linking to some scientific sources.

Linking to other related web sites.

What I have been falsely accused of doing (Christian zealots, listen up!):

Attacking and trying to disprove religion, Christianity, the Bible, and God.

Despite the accusations in so many run-by flamings by zealous Christians, I do no such thing here.
None of the subject matter here has anything to do with those things.
Nor do I ever mention them except to point out how "creation science" itself violates them.
Instead, I concentrate on the facts of specific creationist claims about the real world.
I do not even address one's religious belief in a young earth, however one's claims of scientific evidence to support those beliefs are fair game.

Attacking and trying to disprove creation or creationism.

Not at all.
Creationism, being a religious belief, has my respect since I am a staunch believer in Freedom of Religion.
Rather it is "creation science", a deliberate deception, which I oppose.
The two are not the same thing, a realization also shared by many creationists (ie, Christians who believe in Divine Creation) who complain that "creation science" has usurped the words "creationism" and "creationist."
Unfortunately, over the decades I have had to use those words as usurped by "creation science", but I do still draw a strong distinction between actual creationism and "creation science."

I see no inherent conflict between evolution and Divine Creation.
The only conflict is because of how "creation science" has redefined those terms and in how it has the audacity to dictate to God how He must have created.

Attacking your faith.

Quite the contrary: I'm trying to warn you from having your faith destroyed by "creation science."

Promoting "evolutionism" and evolution by attacking creationism.

For one thing, I have no idea what "evolutionism" is supposed to be.
It's a purely creationist term, like "evolutionist".
I read it as being their "evolution model", their distorted misrepresentation of science and evolution.
Therefore, it most certainly is not evolution! Rather it is purely a product of "creation science" and as such I would never be inclined to promote it!

Nor is promoting evolution the goal of this web site, but rather the goal is the examiniation of "creation science" claims. I also do not need to promote evolution, which
I do think is the best scientific explanation we have for what we observe about living organisms.
I will try to correct creationist misrepresentations of evolution and will present information about evolution in response to a creationist claim.
For that matter, I will present information about any aspect of science that is being misrepresented in a creationist claim.

Nor would I ever try to "prove" evolution by disproving "creation science."
That's just a case of creationists projecting onto their opponent their own dishonest trickery, namely the
"creation science" "Two Model Approach" thinking, which is fallacious (
false dichotomy) and a deliberate deception practiced by creationists.
I am not a creationist and I do not use such dishonest tricks.
An idea needs to be able to stand on its own merits, not just by attacking other ideas as "creation science" does.
Evolution stands on its own quite well, thank you very much.

Promoting atheism.

Even though I have been an atheist for over half a century, I do not seek to turn anyone into an atheist (though I will try to advise and help anyone who is already becoming one).
Quite frankly, I think that most people are not ready for the personal responsibility required of an atheist.
Indeed, the main thrust of my arguments here always involve warning believers to not let "creation science" turn them into atheists!
Would those be the actions of someong trying to destroy people's faith?
Remember, I do fully support Freedom of Religion and served honorably for 35 years defending your religious rights as well as my own, so I do take that freedom and that duty very seriously.

Besides, why should I bother promoting atheism when "creation science" is doing such a good job of promoting the growth and spread of atheism -- though that's with the caveat that it creates "Christian atheists", atheists who still hold to their Christian sect's distorted misunderstanding of what atheism is.
Those Christian atheists do need help and I would especially wish to advise and help them to understand what atheism really is and actually entails.

Your theology may well require you to hold young-earth creationist (YEC) beliefs (eg, biblical literalism, young earth, Noah's Flood).
That is not my concern and I take no issue with those beliefs on my site, though you do have my condolences.
That is something that you will need to work out for yourself and I wish you the best of luck with it.

Rather, where I do get involved is when you claim that the real world must be different than it actually is and that you have scientific evidence to support those beliefs.
And again, the reason for my involvement is not because of your religious beliefs, but rather because of the great
mischief you wish to cause by promoting false claims.
That great mischief includes inappropriate and unethical proselytizing (ie, using lies and deception to deceive your targets into converting), destroying the faith of believers by making their faith directly dependent on false teachings, and endeavoring to subvert and destroy science education.
That great mischief has already caused far too much damage.

At the very least, if you insist on using such claims then you must ensure that you only use the ones that are both valid and true.
The only way to ensure that is to test all of your claims and to eliminate those that fail the test and ensure that you never use them.
That is the testing service that I offer.

Creationism is charged with being
untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three
charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims
that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that
Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. This is surely false.
Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters
of fact.

. . .

It is fair to say that no one has shown how to reconcile such claims with the
available evidence -- evidence which speaks persuasively to a long earth history,
among other things.

In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have
failed those tests.

. . .

Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them.

But there's also a positive aspect to this endeavor.
In the process of researching creationist claims, I have learned so much more about science.
Learning is a good thing; as it is written in the
Pirkei Avot ("Sayings of the Fathers", repeatedly quoted from in the movie, Yentl), "The more learning the more life!"

On YouTube I have found a series of videos whose premise echoes that learning experience:
How Creationism Taught Me Real Science.
It is a series of 40 videos by Tony Reed.
The general format of each video is that he starts out "encountering" a creationist claim, finds that it sounds convincing, and decides to check it out, to verify it. And of course the claim falls apart under inspection.

Links to Site Contents

My Links Page. Links to the other pages on my site
and to other sites.
These include articles I had written on CompuServe (1988 to 1997) examining various creationist claims,
mainly in response to claims posted there by creationists.

My Quotes Page. Mainly from creationists that
demonstrate their position and from former creationists that demonstrate the
detrimental effects that "creation science" had on them.

Again (since nobody seems to get it), my position basically boils down to this (copied from that page):

If you honestly and truly want to fight evolution, then at least do it right!
Learn everything you can about evolution and then attack it, not some stupid strawman caricature of it.
And do so honestly and truthfully!

By refusing to fight evolution honestly and truthfully, but rather using "creation science" instead, you are constantly shooting yourself in the foot, dooming your cause to failure and your followers to losing their faith.

If you ignore that in any "response" to my position, then you are ignoring my position and are only railing against some demented fantasy that only exists in your own mind.
If you truly intend to respond to my position, then respond to my position!

If you email me regarding my site, please address what's actually there rather than what you may wish to imagine to be there.
Please include some kind of reference to which page you are referring to and where in that page, which will help me immensely in answering whatever question you may have, or in clarifying what you may have misunderstood.

And by the way, if you do email me, be sure to give it a meaningful subject line, one that will tell me that your email is not just spam.
So if it looks like spam (ie, with subject lines such as "" (blank), "Hi", "Re:", "Re: your website", etc.), then your email will go straight to the round file (AKA "be deleted without being opened").
Mentioning that it's my creation/evolution website would help.
Mentioning the specific page in the subject line would be even better (and absolutely necessary within the message itself).

And before I finally get around to giving you my email address, I ask that you continue reading this page first.
I ask that so that you can become familiar with my position and what I am trying to do with these pages.
With that knowledge, you can hopefully write a more informed email which would be far more constructive than you damning me for "crimes against God" which exist only in your own imagination.

So please think before you send. I always look forward to thoughtful discussion.

Muddying the water?

It is sad that Carl Baugh will 'muddy the water' for many Christians
and non-Christians. Some Christians will try to use Baugh's 'evidences'
in witnessing and get 'shot down' by someone who is scientifically
literate. The ones witnessed to will thereafter be wary of all creation
evidences and even more inclined to dismiss Christians as nut cases not
worth listening to.

Also, the Christian is likely to be less apt to witness, even perhaps
tempted to doubt their own faith (wondering what other misinformation they
have gullibly believed from Christian teachers). CSF ministers to strengthen
the faith of Christians and equip them for the work of evangelism and, sadly,
the long term effect of Carl Baugh's efforts will be detrimental to both.

We would much rather be spending all our time positively encouraging
and equipping rather than countering the well-intentioned but misguided
efforts of some like Carl Baugh, but we cannot stand idly by knowing
people are being misled. Truth sets people free, not error!

By Robert Morphis from his web site, What Harm is done by Creation Science? (no longer exists):

The main downfall of Creation Science is that it is combined with a belief in YEC, and generally with a belief that YEC is required for salvation.

Because of this the evidence suggests that those who ascribe to Creation Science, esp. those who promote it, tend to:

Drive Christians to become atheists, agnostics and deists,

Become severely self-deluded and/or morally degenerate,

Engage in slander.

"We don't know why the evidence is the way it is but we believe in the literal understanding of Genesis." may be a tougher line to teach than "the worldly, atheistic scientists are all in a conspiracy / brainwashed / blinded by the devil" but if

you believe that a literal reading of Gen 1 is required

you wish to avoid bearing false witness and

you don't want to create atheists

I strongly recommend it.

. . .

It has been my experience in talking to agnostics and atheists that many were raised in fundamentalist churches and that the denial of the physical evidence that those churches engaged in was a significant reason for them leaving Christ.

By Scott Rauch, a former young-earth creationist:

"I still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical
Christian community did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution
debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed."